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Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Masi Magam 2017 - Sri Parthasarathi at Bay of Bengal

By chance occasioned to read a book titled ‘Cyclonic storms
in the Bay of Bengal’ – for the use of Sailors by John Eliot. .. .. ..

Bay of Bengal, the
largest bay in the world, forms the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean.
Roughly triangular, it is bordered mostly by India and Sri Lanka, Bangladesh,
Myanmar (Burma) and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the east. Number
of rivers flow into it and that includes the holy Ganges, the Brahmaputra,
Godavari, Mahanadi, Krishna and Cauvery.

Alongside the bay of
Bengal is the famed sandy Marina beach, running from Fort St George to
Besant Nagar. To the early morning visitor, Marine offers tranquillity and
more. Do you love the sea, the shore,
the waves, the boats and more ! or does it raise an eerie fear in you. You would read something extracted from the
book, though the purpose of the post is the blissful happenings on 12th Mar 2017 ~ Masi Magam, a special one. At 0530 in the
morning Sri Parthasarathi adorning beautiful ornaments had
purappadu atop Garuda Vahanam and reached Bay of Bengal for theerthavari. This
is an annual Uthsavam and thousands accompany Him, have purificatory bath after
Chakrathazhwar theerthavari.

Sri Peyawlar has sung
about Thiruvallikkeni temple in his ‘Moondram Thiruvanthati’ – describing
Thiruvallikkeni waves as being white as milk and there are red
pavazham and white pearls at the time of twilight and at that sandhya time he
has the darshan of the Lord at Thiruvalllikeni

Bay of Bengal on Pournami
day would have high ebbs and it would be jumping with joy celebrating the
arrival of Sri Krishna, the charioteer to Arjuna atop Garuda vahana.

The
object of the little volume according to the author is to give the mariner who
navigates in Bay of Bengal, an account of the dangerous storms that occur in it
and explain the signs and indications by which he may recognize when he is
approaching a cyclone ! it is hardly
necessary to remind sailors that storms which are met with in Bay of Bengal are
occasionally of excessive violence.
Formerly when little or nothing was known of the laws of storms, they
caused frequent grave destruction to shipping.
Brief accounts of atleast two storms that occurred in Bay of Bengal in
1700s are described in detail in Orme’s
History of India. On 2nd Oct
1746 [that was no Gandhi
Jayanthi for obvious reasons !!] the weather at Madras was remarkably
fine and moderate all day. About
midnight a furious storm arose and continued with great violence until the noon
of next day causing havoc and killing people.

It is
hardly too much to say that the knowledge of laws of storms which is due to the
labours of meteorologists utilisings the observations furnished by thousands if
seamen, is now sufficient, if properly employed to enable sailors avoid the
full strength of cyclonic storms in the open sea of the Bay of Bengal.
Disasters still occasionally do happen, may be traced to neglect of the most
ordinary precautions or to disregard of the accumulated experiences of the
past. During a cyclonic storm in Arabian
sea and Gulf of Aden in May 1885, the Augusta German man-of- war, the Renard
French man-of-war, and the SS Speke Hall foundered at sea within a few hours of
each other. If such disasters are not
enough, there are strong currents too.
The cyclonic winds by friction with surface water may give rise to
strong currents in the Bay of Bengal. In
the open sea, the currents over the whole storm area of fierce and hurricane
winds approximately agree in direction with the winds, and are probably
stronger than are generally imagined.

Every
year, the lensers of Thiruvallikkeni provide glimpses of Lord visiting the
seashore. This time the bravest among
the group of Srivaishnavaites chose to
travel in a boat into the sea and deliver us some beautiful pictures of Lord
Parthasarathi at the Bay of Bengal on Masi Magam day – a different view of the
crowd as seen from the sea. I was away
in Tirumala having darshan of Lord Srinivasa and here are some photos taken by
my friend Thirumalai Vinjamoor Venkatesh (popularly Jilla) Swamin. Reproduced with his permission and shared.

Though
boats appear poetry in motion in high seas, it is often difficult and could
have : Heaves, the linear vertical motion excess of which can swamp a
boat; Sway; Surge; Pitch; Roll and Yaw –
all causing discomfort. The book printed
in 1890 however adds that – cyclonic storms very rarely occur in Bay of Bengal
during the months of Jan, Feb & March.
During 15th June to 15th Sept, cyclonic storms are
of frequent occurrence, but are not very extensive or violent.